"Thus it is said that one who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements."
Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

War on Terrorism

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

U.S., Turkish Leaders Discuss Syrian War, Region

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Sept.
18, 2012 – U.S. and Turkish leaders have a similar view of events in Syria and
agreed to work together on that and other regional issues, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff said today.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey spoke about his
meetings in Ankara, Turkey, during his flight back to Washington.

The war in Syria is the regional issue
with the most notoriety, the chairman said. While hard numbers are tough to
come by, tens of thousands of Syrians have been killed and hundreds of
thousands have fled as Syrians tried to overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.

Turkey shares a border with Syria, and
thousands of Syrians have taken refuge in Turkey. Fighting in Aleppo, Syria,
has caused the numbers of Syrians fleeing to spike.

Dempsey met with his Turkish
counterpart, Gen. Necdet Ozel, Minister of National Defense Ismet Yilmaz and
officials at Turkey’s Foreign Ministry. “We shared our insights into the common
interests we are both trying to address in the region,” Dempsey said. “We agreed
to recommit ourselves to collaborate on the regional issues -- not just issues
unique to either Turkey or the United States.”

Syria is the epicenter of instability in
the region, and events there tangle the threads that weave through the area,
the chairman said. The Turks are worried about the thread of violent extremism
and groups taking advantage of instability, whether those groups are al-Qaida
or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, better known as PKK.

The Turks also are worried about Iranian
influence in Syria and the region, and the chairman said he and Turkish
officials discussed the whole cloth these threads make.

“That’s the piece of this that I was
encouraged by,” Dempsey said. “They are not looking at Syria through a soda
straw any more than we are.”

The Turks told the chairman they are
concerned about the prolonged nature of the conflict. They believe the longer
the fighting lasts in Syria, the greater the chances of sectarian division.

The Turks discussed humanitarian
efforts. More than 200,000 Syrians have fled the country, and between 400,000
and 500,000 are “internally displaced” people.

“The Turks are actually quite proud of
what they have been able to accomplish in their southern provinces to help take
care of the Syrians,” Dempsey said, “but they are also concerned about the
continuing influx of refugees and are reaching out to the international
community to assist them in that regard.”

Turkish leaders did not ask for any U.S.
military assistance for the refugees. The American commitment to Turkey is “the
U.S. will continue to monitor the situation, and we will continue to engage at
all levels in order to think through some of the contingencies that might occur
with regard to the humanitarian issue,” Dempsey said.